From: Bill Shannon <bill.shannon(a)oracle.com&gt; Date: November 16, 2012, 17:18:12 MST To: jsr342-experts(a)javaee-spec.java.net Subject: [javaee-spec users] [jsr342-experts] security permissions for libraries Reply-To: jsr342-experts(a)javaee-spec.java.net As described in this document: http://java.net/projects/javaee-spec/downloads/download/ee-sec-mgr-00-ljm... we plan to add the ability to include a permissions.xml file with an application to control what security permissions the application gets. Our intent was to support this only at the module level, e.g., only for a war file, ejb-jar file, or app client jar file. This raises a question I'd like your opinion on... What permissions should apply to libraries in the "lib" directory of an ear file? Ultimately we'd like to allow each such library to include a permissions.xml file of its own, but even then we need to decide what permissions should apply if the library doesn't include a permissions.xml file. Remember that libraries are available to all modules of the application. There seem to be a few options: 1. The permissions for the library are the same as the permissions for the code that calls the library. If the library code is called from a war file, it gets the permissions of the war file. If the same library is called from an ejb-jar file, it gets the permissions of the ejb-jar file. 2. The permissions for the library are the default permissions for the container calling the library. As above, the permissions would vary based on what code calls the library, but would always be the default permissions for that container, even though the calling code might have more or fewer permissions than the default. (It's not clear to me that this is implementable.) 3. We allow a permissions.xml file to be included in the "lib" directory. All the libraries in the "lib" directory get these permissions, no matter which container is calling them. Note that in addition to libraries in the "lib" directory of an ear file, modules can use a Class-Path entry to reference other libraries anywhere in the ear file. I think #1 above is the only viable choice for this case. Again, in a future release we hope to support a permissions.xml file in the library jar file itself. How do you think we should handle security permissions for libraries in this release?